On Saturday morning, Tilden sent me to Sapsucker Woods at 7 AM with instructions to "come home and wake me up if you find anything good." Well, Brad Walker and I did find some fine birds on a walk around the Wilson Trail, including a MAGNOLIA WARBLER, NASHVILLE WARBLER, a couple of cooperative OVENBIRDS, a few unseen BALTIMORE ORIOLES and WOOD THRUSHES, and other expected birds. I also crept up within 4 meters of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker drumming on a metal "Stay off the ponds" sign right next to a painted version of itself on a wooden "Stay on the trails" sign.
But there certainly was no fallout, and many expected breeding birds still haven't arrived. (We found no redstarts on the Wilson Trail North, nor any Red-eyed Vireos or tanagers in the woods.) So I decided to let T wake up on his own. By 9:20 AM, we were ready to head out together. I gave him the choice among 1) chasing the Ruff at Montezuma; 2) finding breeding warblers like Pine Warbler and Louisiana Waterthrush in their special nearby habitats; 3) giving ourselves a chance for variety at Sapsucker Woods or the Hawthorn Orchard; or 4) going to Myers to follow up on Jay's morning report. He picked the last option. I silently cheered, and off we went. Just past the house at the entrance, we quickly found the CAPE MAY WARBLER by its song, then got some decent views of the bird as it foraged and twice crossed the road. Here we also heard our first AMERICAN REDSTART of the year. Then on the beach, we had long, splendid scope view of the RUDDY TURNSTONE and DUNLIN from about 15 meters away. Tilden and I saw our first BANK SWALLOWS of the year, about a half dozen of them. He also found a GREEN HERON and an OSPREY in trees across Salmon Creek. On the way out, we stopped again at the house on the corner, and then, on a tip from Stuart Krasnoff, at Salt Point. This time we didn't find the warblers, but we did see three ORCHARD ORIOLES - one subadult male, one adult male, and one adult female. Mark Chao PS. Later, Tilden joined the throngs at the International Migratory Bird Day celebration at the Lab. Not only did he get to see an incredible variety of live diurnal and nocturnal raptors up close, he got ice cream from the mobile operations unit of the Cayuga Lake Creamery. Thank you to all the Lab's volunteers who made this huge event such a success again! -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
